Left and right eye images of a frame pair in stereoscopic video often include minor differences resulting from the different spatial locations of the cameras used to capture the left and right eye images of a frame pair.
Difference encoders, e.g., motion based or other inter-frame encoders, offer an attractive method of encoding left and right eye images. Unfortunately, while the left and right eye images are often very similar, the relatively minor differences between the images can result a fair amount of encoding artifacts and/or less then desirable data compression when difference based encoding methods are used to encode a sequence of frames including left and right eye images of a stereoscopic image sequence, e.g., movie, program or other piece of video or 3D image content.
In view of the above discussion, it should be appreciated that there is a need for improved methods of generating encoded stereoscopic image data and for decoding such data. While it is desirable that difference encoding and decoding techniques be used, it would be desirable if pre and/or post encoding or decoding techniques could be developed to improve the quality and/or data efficiency achieved by the overall encoding and/or decoding process.